Joey Ciccone was our classroom tough, and for our year‘s final show-and-tell, he‘d brought in his pet King Snake. Joey was the type of kid who had been wearing aftershave since kindergarten, and probably because he’d been shaving since then. His precocious physical prowess and the resulting Fonzi-like cool and self-confidence made him the shoe-in as our class’s Alpha Male. Everything was a competition with Joey, even show-and-tell.

Which leads me back to the snake.

When Joey picked the snake up out of its terrarium, all the kids pulled back. You could tell that it was the reaction he’d been hoping for. He was clearly the only person brave enough to come near the snake, let alone pick it up. Again, Joey was top dog, and his snarling grin reminded us all of that fact. But as he gloated, Jenny exclaimed, “Oh, he’s so pretty!”

Joey‘s head whipped around; his eyes glistened slightly. Pretty had not been his goal. Gross, creepy, or someone simply passing out from fear were more along the lines of reactions he’d hoped for.

This created a real problem for me too. I’d been in love with Jenny all week long, ever since I’d found out that she like-liked me. Early in the week, Jenny had passed a note hidden under a calculator to Cindy Swanson who’d passed it tucked in a book to Alison Johnson who’d passed it rolled around a pencil to Michelle Orwell who’d been passing it open-handed (always a mistake) to my best friend Mike when Mrs. Matron, an old hand at busting such smuggling rings, had caught them and read the note in front of the class. That note divulged Jenny’s affections for me, and inquired if I returned the sentiment. I immediately did. To not do so would be like declining the lottery winnings because you didn’t remember buying a ticket. Jenny Albrecht was the most beautiful creature that I had never noticed before.

She was also the first girl that I‘d ever had a crush on, and being inexperienced in such matters, I hadn’t a clue as to how I could really impress her. But here was an opportunity that couldn’t be passed up. It was time to become a snake-handler.

I knew that I couldn’t show the slightest fear, or Jenny would naturally feel herself drawn towards Joey’s strong masculine presence, who not only wasn’t afraid to handle a snake, but to complicate matters, also rode the sweetest set of wheels Roosevelt Elementary had ever seen: a Superlite Mongoose 500. That baby was fully loaded with front and rear hand brakes, neon-orange dice inner tube valve caps, total chromed mag-wheels, and the final touch, stunt pegs on both wheels, which made it a piece of cake to give a girl a ride on the handlebars, or the back of your bike. I could picture Jenny on the back of Joey’s bike, running her fingers through his spiky, yet sculpted, mega-moussed hair, and it made me want to puke like the idea of kissing girls had made me want to puke the week before.

It was now or never.

“Can I hold it?” I asked, feeling the blood flush from my face, only to fill my shoes like concrete blocks.

Joey looked as though I’d just offered to do his homework for free. He suspected something, but couldn’t work out what it was right away. He shoulders sagged slightly, disappointed that his show and tell item hadn’t inspired the shock and awe that he’d expected, and I think he would have said no if his predatory instinct hadn’t smelled my fear, which was so ripe it could bruise like peach and probably smelled just as sweet to Joey. It wasn’t that Joey had a mean streak; at this moment, he seemed to be painted solid with it and wouldn’t mind a little bruised peach flesh as an hors d’oeuvre to the raw victory he saw developing before him. He grinned like the devil offering a contract that “just needed initialing here and here,” and he handed me the snake.

“Handed me the snake” is a misleading phrase, as little Mephistopheles, as I’m certain his name must have been, had wound himself comfortably around his master’s arm, and the only way to pass him between us was for Meph to accept the offer of my arm and crawl aboard. His forked tongue flickered, paused, then flickered again and withdrew. Tasting that I smelled acceptable, at least by reptilian standards, he poured himself like a rope of water, defying gravity, gracefully easing onto my hand and up my arm, winding a coil around my forearm. His body felt like solid muscle in a silk sleeve, squeezing gently like a giant thumb and forefinger where he’d secured himself around my forearm. It wasn’t that bad, I told myself.

My racing pulse slowed, and I again became able to hear something other than my own heartbeat jackhammering in my ears. When I started thinking that I just might survive this experience, Jenny said, “You’re so brave. I couldn’t stand still with a creepy thing like that crawling all over me.” Something in her tone scratched the tickling fear that I’d been stifling so far, and it was one of those tickles that should never be scratched, as it only inflames and becomes an insatiable rash-like itch.

I looked up at the ring of faces that were watching and saw only wide-eyed horror or squinch-eyed disgust. Joey of course oozed a smug satisfaction, watching his evil plan all coming together. Outside the circle, leaning against her desk, stood Mrs. Matron looking pale and a touch woozy.

“Mm-hm,” I squeaked, standing rigid like a snake jungle-gym. At that squeak, the snake lifted its head and flicked it tongue in question. My squeak had apparently duplicated the same terrified sound a mouse makes when dropped onto a King Snake’s dinner plate. Meph, being a red-blooded snake with snakish needs, began to move towards the squeak’s source. Gliding almost imperceptibly up my arm, his hunting instinct had clearly taken over, and he sought to make a better stalk on his prey by using the concealment offered by gliding up my shirtsleeve. The tickle of terror blended seamlessly with the tickle of snake slithering inside my shirt, and had I been able to take in a breath, I’m sure I would have let it out again in a train-whistle scream.

Meph, meanwhile, had worked his way to the neck of my shirt, from where he inched bit by bit, raising up directly in front of my face. His tongue flashed warily, lightly brushing my lips, no doubt innocently testing for confirmation of mouse-breath. Instead, he got the pent up train whistle from my cavernous mouth.

You’ve never seen any wonder, until you’ve seen a snake’s eyes pop wide open in pure panic. Meph suddenly realized that it all had been a trap. There was no mouse. In fact, he was the one who would be eaten, and there was the gaping maw in which he would disappear forever. He let go of everything, dropping straight down the inside of my untucked shirt, and he was moving so fast, he hit the ground skipping in his effort to put distance between us.

I was equally motivated to part ways, and leaping straight up, I bet I only touched desktops in my flight out of the room. My house was a mere two-blocks from the school, and had somebody put a stopwatch to it that day, a new American record for that distance would have been established.

What I heard later was that while my screaming never stopped the whole run home, it had gone super-sonic. The rumor was that in the surrounding three counties, the emergency switchboards lit up, with calls reporting dogs and cats hiding under furniture together, fish flopping out of the water onto river banks, and birds circling frantically around small children, leaving some folks to expect an impending earthquake.

I, at home, and Meph, at school, were both recovered from the respective coat closets in which we’d sought shelter, quivering and teeth chattering, but otherwise physically intact.

In the end, I was correct in supposing that my love with Jenny was not meant to be, but ironically, much else turned out differently than expected. Although Jenny thought snakes were creepy, she also was a huge fan of any living thing, and she was instrumental in the search which recovered Meph from the coat closet. Contrary to my imaginings, she and Joey did not get together, as Joey’s insensitive 15 minute laughing fit, rather than showing any concern for his traumatized pet, left Jenny quite sure that she didn’t like him at all. Of course, the story wouldn’t be complete without following up on old Mephistopheles himself, who after a full recovery was released into the wild from which he’d been captured years earlier. It’s a shame that we never got his version of the story. I’d kind of like to hear it.

Author's comments: This came from an assignment where everyone in our group wrote stories beginning with the same first line. One story was the truth, the others were lies. We read them in front of the class, and then the class voted as to which story was the truth. I plan to use the activity in my own classroom